When Vermont voters cast ballots on two proposed amendments to the state constitution in the coming days, many will do so before they know how much various groups are spending to influence the outcomes.
That’s because groups known as public question committees don’t need to file campaign finance disclosures until October 9, or 30 days before the general election. In Vermont, mail-in ballots go out to all 440,000 active registered voters beginning this week, 45 days before the election.
The mismatch undermines efforts to provide greater transparency about money in politics. But Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos said the 30-day requirement existed before voting by mail and was geared toward local ballot measures, not statewide ones.
“I don’t think the legislature was actually contemplating the fact that constitutional amendment questions would fall under this,” Condos said.
The gap is relatively small, just about 15 days, but plenty of voters fill out their ballots and return them right away. That means they’ll do so before the spending disclosures are filed.
State law requires any entity that spends $1,000 or more in an election cycle advocating a position on a public question to file two expenditure reports before Election Day: 30 days and 10 days prior. Another report is due two weeks after it.
Vermont lawmakers passed the measure in 2013 in the wake of
Citizens’ United, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that barred restrictions on independent campaign spending by corporations. That was long before the pandemic led lawmakers to implement mail-in voting, said Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham), the outgoing chair of the Government Operations Committee.
The issue hasn’t come up more recently because there hasn’t been a statewide public question since 2010, when 17-year-olds won the right to vote in primaries if they turn 18 by the general election.
“It should probably be changed to 50 or 60 days before the election so there is some understanding of who is spending money before people start voting,” White wrote in an email to
Seven Days.